'Constructed City' 13: Laid Off

All Images: 'Constructed City' Screen Prints (Work in Progress),
Leicester Print Workshop, March 2020

For fairly obvious reasons, my regular printing activities at Leicester Print Workshop are now on hold for the foreseeable future.  In fact, it's already been two weeks since I made my last visit - during the second of which, my school workplace has also been mostly closed.  Like much of the population, I'm effectively living a locked-down life, and wondering just how different life will be in the future.  I'm choosing to believe there is 'life', and a 'future', if for no other reason that agonising over the alternative is futile and leads absolutely nowhere.  Who knows? - we may even emerge from all this, one day, a little wiser, if significantly chastened - and thus inclined to construct a slightly saner future.

Anyway, while we wait indoors, to find out whether or not this really is Armageddon, creative work remains as resilient a bulwark against negativity and despair, as it ever was.  I can't print, so have made the decision to expand the scope of my 'Constructed City' project to include painting as well - and have begun preparing a reasonably large shaped panel, accordingly.  But more of that in due course.  For now, it seems only reasonable to draw a line under what I achieved on my last couple of trips to LPW, before it closed.    

The good news is that I was able to bring all the pre-existing prints in progress to some kind of conclusion, in one way or another.  In many cases that involved adding new layers of (a slightly sickly) muted yellow, or of a lightish grey, and of black.  that yellow felt like a bit of a risk, but it actually helped to modulate some of the problematic bright yellow sheets, which had been bugging me slightly for many weeks.  As usual, the addition of more black provided a pretty direct way to tie together those last few that been refusing to just 'sit down' properly.

The results are both darker and denser than I originally envisaged, and I may have to drastically rethink my original idea that these images would function largely as backgrounds.  But that's okay - there's plenty of pleasingly nuanced detail going on within all that multi-layered complexity.  And, if it wasn't already obvious - it proves that an intuitive, in-the-moment, decision making approach works better for me, these days, than too much pre-planning.  It's essentially how my paintings have evolved in recent years, and it seems that's the kind of printer I'm going to be too.  One day, I might set myself the task of producing a technically slick, consistent edition of prints, but for now, there aren't two alike - and all that limitless variation feels fine by me.  It's also appears I'm unlikely to be adopting a less-is-more approach, anytime soon.  That's okay too - I've always tended more to a maximalist's approach to problem solving.  We can only be the artists we were always going to be, regardless of medium. 

Anyway, there's not much else to say about these - so I'll let you judge for yourself, for now.  In reality, much remains up for grabs, even now, as it's still my intention to start cutting up and reconfiguring many of these - collage style.  That in itself, will involve another round of improvisation and intuitive decision making.  The next time you see them, they may look considerably different all over again. 

It only remains to express the hope that anyone reading this, along with all those you care about, can remain safe and healthy in the coming weeks and months.  Whatever your circumstances - I hope they remain survivable, and that the 'symptoms' any of us may succumb to, are as mild as possible.  And, ultimately, nothing's changed really - I'm still resolved to just keep making stuff until I no longer can.